Seeking the Living Among the Dead

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family. 

In 1926, a man named William St. Clair died in London. Years later, the city decided to build a new subway tunnel right through the old cemetery where he was buried. When they dug up his casket, they made a shocking discovery: it was empty.

City officials launched an investigation. Had grave robbers disturbed it? Had he never been buried there in the first place? Did someone move his remains? No one ever found out.

What’s fascinating is how hard people worked to explain the mystery—because we assume dead people stay put. That’s what tombs are for.

Luke 24 opens with a similar mystery—but one far more significant. A group of women went to Jesus’ tomb, not looking for a miracle, but ready to anoint a dead body. They loved Him. They followed Him. But they still thought He was dead. Luke 24 verse 1:

1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.

The women come to the tomb expecting a dead body. They were going with the intention of preparing the body for burial in the Jewish custom.

2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb,

3 but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.

These were angels.

5 And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?

6 He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,

7 that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”

This is a gentle rebuke by the angels. Even though Jesus had repeatedly told the disciples that He would rise again on the third day, they were slow to believe him.

Now they are facing an empty tomb and supernatural beings of light are confronting their unbelief.

8 And they remembered his words,

9 and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.

10 Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles,

11 but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

This is not surprising that the men didn’t believe their testimony, because in that culture women were not considered credible witnesses. That’s shameful and wrong, but that’s the way it was.

12 But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

And that’s as far as we will read today. We will end with Peter’s confusion and try to find ourselves in it.

The question of the angels should be ringing in our ears. “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

This is the irony of the situation. Jesus did exactly what He said He would do. He rose from the dead. But the disciples were slow to believe it.

I want you to understand, this was the greatest day in the history of the universe! This day was more important than the days of creation. The disciples alive to witness this moment got to experience first-hand the greatest day in human history, but they were not quick to believe. Why?

Because this is what sin does to us. We reject the clear Word of God and seek the living among the dead.

In the Old Testament, there are numerous examples of the surrounding cultures doing this.

They looked for hope and salvation from lifeless idols. Many of them had rituals and practices with the purpose of consulting the dead for guidance. Ancient cultures believed that the spirits of the dead had influence over the living. They could bless or curse people.

People went to graves to eat and drink to appease ancestral spirits. There were cults that worshipped dead kings. They made offerings to the dead to receive blessings in agriculture, fertility, or healing. Some of them even sacrificed people.

God had specifically forbidden these practices, but the Israelites often got caught up in this false religion. The first king of Israel, King Saul, tried to consult a dead Samuel by using a necromancer. He was literally seeking the living word of God through the dead.

I’m telling you all this because it is an important theme in Scripture and because it is also the background for what’s happening to the disciples at the resurrection. It’s the sermon being preached to them by the angels. Stop seeking the living among the dead! He is risen!

Modern Americans “seek the living among the dead” whenever we look for life, meaning, security, or identity in things that cannot ultimately give it—things that are lifeless, temporary, or spiritually dead. Our idols are not golden calves or ancestral tombs, but the heart posture is strikingly similar to that of ancient cultures.

We try to find life through stuff. The latest fashion… the newest tech… We think the next big purchase or achievement will finally give rest to our restless souls. But these things don’t love us back, and we’re left overworked and underwhelmed.

We see it in the culture of pornography and casual hookups. We are seeking connection and intimacy, but we trade that longing for a cheap substitute and it leaves us numb, ashamed, and addicted.

Proverbs 6 warns about the folly of looking for meaning through sexual encounters. We give in to temptation, not realizing that it’s a banquet in the grave.

The next obsession… the next addiction… all of these are ways we seek the living among the dead.

But we also see it in our religious endeavors. Instead of tying our faith to the simple, powerful reality of the resurrection, we go looking for newer and better ways to experience God – often in the form of new rituals and practices.

We try to go back to the tabernacle or the temple, reinventing faith practices that can easily become more important to us than the God they were meant to reflect. There are empty church buildings and cathedrals all over the world that are now nothing more than ancestral tombs because the lampstand of God’s Spirit has long since left the building.

You won’t find Jesus in better religious practices, no more than you can find Him in any of the other ways humans try to find meaning and life apart from the simple message of the Gospel. Even the proper means of grace – Word, prayer, sacraments – these things are all meant to communicate Christ and His benefits to believers.

They lead us in daily faith and repentance. We don’t need more than that. We don’t need more than Jesus. And He is alive and has promised to be with His people.

The resurrection of Jesus is a simple, historical reality. It is not just a religious belief. It’s a historical fact. If it didn’t happen, then all Christians are fools. Since the time of Jesus, an estimated 70 million Christians have been martyred for their faith. That’s more people than WWII killed. And all of it was a foolish waste if the resurrection was a hoax.

But we have many good reasons to believe the resurrection actually happened.

Christians don’t ask people to have blind faith in things. People like to pit faith against reason, but you don’t have to.

I have faith in something that I think is trustworthy. I believe the resurrection happened for several good reasons. There are several reasons I’m going to give you are widely accepted by scholars – not just Christian scholars, but everyone.

First, Jesus was a real person who died by Roman crucifixion – there’s no debate here. There’s plenty of evidence.

Second, His disciples really believed he rose again. They were slow to believe, as Luke tells us. But by the end of chapter 24 they were all in. Hundreds of people claimed to have seen him. So, if it was a conspiracy, it was not the conspiracy of a few people.

Third, Saul, an enemy of the church, converted after believing he saw the risen Christ. He changed his name to Paul and wrote most of the NT. Non-Christian scholars accept this and have no explanation for it.

Fourth, James, the brother of Jesus, was a skeptic until after he saw Jesus rise. This is also widely accepted among historians.

Fifth, the tomb was really empty. Most scholars accept this as fact. There are three common conspiracy theories about this:

a. Did Jesus only pass out or somehow fake his death? But a Roman soldier certified and reported his death. They buried him and placed soldiers and a heavy stone believing he was dead.
b. Did the women go to the wrong tomb? Three of the Gospels tell us the women saw Jesus buried. But let’s assume they went to the wrong tomb anyway… The last thing the religious leaders wanted was a rumor of Jesus rising again. This was a fifteen-minute walk for the high priest to go and prove they were in the wrong tomb. I imagine he would have done that to stop the rumor.
c. Did the disciples steal the body? This was the theory the religious leaders wanted people to believe. The soldiers reported one thing. They were told to say something else. Realize that the stone placed over the tomb was probably a 4,000-pound stone. As many as 16 guards were placed to guard the entrance. 12 awake, 4 asleep and they rotated around the clock. It doesn’t make any sense.

But here’s my personal favorite reason for believing this happened. In all four Gospels, women were the 1st eyewitnesses. If this were a conspiracy, if someone made up the story, that would not have been a wise choice. Women were not respected and trusted like they are today. So, if this was a conspiracy, it was a badly executed one.

If the resurrection were a lie, or a massive conspiracy, it would have eventually come out and no one would be talking about Jesus today.

There are many other historical events we believe happened with much less evidence. I’m not choosing to believe something blindly. I believe because it makes sense.

You may have your doubts… I have them too at times. Even some of the disciples doubted.

We will be patient with you. But I hope the possibility has at least earned a fair hearing. Keep coming. Come to the Adoption Class next week. Keep asking questions. Keep an open mind. And our prayer is that Jesus will capture your heart and change everything for you like it has for us.

Stop seeking the living among the dead, because He is risen!